Yahoo! offers new audio search service

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yahoo! has introduced a new beta service called yahoo! audio search. the new search will allow users to search over 50 million audio files of almost every type, including podcasts, music, and even spoken word.

yahoo! was able to do this by integrating its other search services, including yahoo! video search, yahoo! image search, and yahoo! news search, into the new audio search service. to provide access to even more content yahoo! teamed up with music providers emusic, garageband.com, napster, and realnetworks rhapsody in addition to its own yahoo! music service.

an additional feature of the yahoo! audio search service is the preferred audio service, which will help identify a user's primary music service and provide a one-click connection to that service. the audio search will also list alternate sources for audio content.

brian's opinion
this is a pretty slick little innovation by yahoo!. it's the first audio search service that i know of that integrates with a wide variety of audio content. the additional partnerships with popular music services such as napster and rhapsody makes the search service even more powerful.

yahoo! is clearly trying to keep up with some of the recent innovations and new services offered by google and msn. this audio search service does give yahoo! an edge considering that the other two competitors have yet to offer a similar service.

i really like the idea behind the preferred audio service feature. i have a feeling that feature might have been put in by the insistence of music services like napster and rhapsody. after all, if i were one of these two companies i wouldn't want one of my users going somewhere else to buy content if he or she could get the same audio from my service. the one-click connection also makes this service user-friendly, and gives those who already subscribe to a service a reason to use the yahoo! audio search service first before going solely to their online music provider.

user comments 2 comment(s)

cool(5:51pm est fri aug 05 2005)yahoo is really stepping up to the plate with this service. i like the idea and emusic being a part of it helps out their efforts. – by jason b.

whoopee. (8:41pm est sun aug 07 2005)at first i thought, feh! more corporate sheepherding, corralling people to sites where they can download almost-as-good-as-fm-radio-quality mp3's for a buck each. but at least they're not limiting you to their y!music service. unlike some companies, they don't have to be ordered by the government to show customers that other providers exist.

i'm not against pay-2-dl mp3's, but they cost too damn much. even 320kbps mp3's are a compromised swiss-cheese lossy half-copy of the original. why should a 128 or even 160kbps file cost as much as the full physically on a cd? huh? answer that, good charolette!– by ab horrent